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No, I am not an idiot. I do know that it’s not a fair comparison. However, it should show that how much Android has progressed. Before I bought HTC Desire, I looked at the specifications and thought, it’s as good as an iPhone at the time but without the couple hundred more pounds. There also had been rave reviews on HTC Desire across most review websites. Well, most people were wrong then. The specifications mean nothing.

After using HTC Desire for a year, I switched to iPhone 5. I have been happily using iPhone 5 for almost four years. As mentioned in my previous post, I made the switch from iPhone 5 to Nexus 6P because Mee found Android complicated after a week of use. To be honest, I am still quite happy to use iPhone 5 now if we hadn’t bought Nexus 6P. I didn’t even think about moving on to the new iPhones when they were out. The only thing that I wish my iPhone 5 had was fingerprint, but then again, it’s not essential.

Coming back to HTC Desire, even though it came with a 4GB microSD card which is expandable to 32GB, the real space that can be used to install apps and games is the internal RAM; 576MB. In actual fact, I had so much fun trying to find ways and means to utilise the 576MB and using apps to move apps to microSD in order to free up the 576RAM. However, as hard as I tried, I was always on the verge of using up the whole 576MB because not all apps were happy running on microSD. The most significant disadvantage of running apps on microSD was the speed. It lagged the phone so much. Anyway, the fun stopped when the day my HTC Desire told me that it failed to recognise my microSD.

I had to try iPhone, I thought to myself. It’s expensive but maybe I would get more out of it. Indeed I have. Before that, I couldn’t imagine myself owning a phone for more than a year, let alone four years! Well, I am still using it once in a while and I have even upgraded it to iOS 10. It just keeps going. My iPad 2 has been terrible since upgrading it to iOS 7 but that’s another story. Thinking about it now, it would actually save me a lot of time had I gone for an iPhone in the first place. By the way, the apps on Android were actually kind of horrible when compared to apps made for iOS.

Moving on the Google Nexus 6P. It’s like a whole new world again. At first use, it’s fast and complicated at the same time. When I first tried to setup the phone, I actually stopped for a few moment trying to think where to go. What I am about to say may come as a surprise. I don’t actually feel Nexus 6P a lot faster than when I was using iPhone 5. As always, iOS apps are better than Android’s apps. I use Flipboard a lot and I enjoy using it on my iPhone 5 than Nexus 6P. I think the biggger screen and Android OS are just about the difference between the two. Oh, 64GB definitely feels good compared to iPhone 5 16GB.

iOS is very good indeed. Android is an OS that tries to do too much. The Android customisation is to no end. I still don’t like the look of iPhones after iPhone 5S. Maybe iPhone 8 will change my mind but if my Nexus 6P is still as good as now, I will stick to it for many years to come.

I am currently using Google Nexus 6P, replacing my iPhone 5 which I have been using happily for the last few years. Why that switch? It’s not deliberate. Mee is using iPhone 5s, her second iPhone actually. Whenever we bought an iPhone, we always opted for the 16GB which is the cheapest. We never have the need for more space until now. Since we have Mason, it’s always about him I suppose. We take lots of videos and photos of him. When we look back at them, it brings back lots of memories. Even though Mason is only 15 months now, it seems like a long time now.

Hence, 16GB is nowhere near enough. iPhone was the first choice when I started out searching for the next phone for Mee. However, it was still quite early in the year and a few more months, iPhone 7 will be announced. I have to say, I don’t like the design of iPhone 6. But then I saw an advertisement about Google Nexus 6P. Well, at one point, I was attracted to Nexus phones because they are the vanilla Android. But going from HTC Desire to iPhone 5, I didn’t have much confidence in Android at that time. Anyway, I went into Google Play Store and there was a discount of £70 and it brought the price down to less than £400 for a 32GB Nexus 6P. I started the discussion with Mee, persuading her that Android has progressed and I wouldn’t recommend her to just about any phone. If she didn’t like it after a week, I would use the Nexus 6P and she will just have to wait for iPhone 7.

So, we bought one and I opted for the 64GB which was only £449. A week later, Mee pushed it to me and it’s now mine since then. I have to say, Android is a complicated system for a person like Mee who have been using iPhone for so many years. Admittedly, I didn’t feel like it own my phone until the past two weeks. I have been doing a lot of testing with the battery apps, cleaning apps, widgets, lock screen and lots and lots of other apps. The battery was amazing at one point and other times, dreadful. There was once where my Nexus 6P only last a good five to six hours. Now, with moderate usage, it easily lasts a day. I don’t think any of the battery apps helped at all. All they do is advertising and advertising. At one point, I was getting advertisement about fulltone fulldrive 2 equipment. It kept popping up when I was browsing. My Nexus 6P will always light up mysteriously only for me to find out that it’s advertisement.

Now, I just let Android manages everything without interfering it with additional apps. I just install the apps that I want to use instead of monitor the system. Having used Google Nexus 6P, I would say iOS and Android are both good in their own way. With the price of Google Nexus 6P, I am on the Android side. The build of the phone is great and comparable to other high end Android phones and I find it hard to justify why would there be other Android phones which cost more than Nexus 6P.

As of now, Nexus 6P is the end of its road. No more Nexus, out come Pixel. And I am a proud owner of the last Nexus.

Just yesterday, I was saying how I managed to solve the issue I had with my HTC Desire. Immediately after that, I found out that all the apps that I had installed and moved to the second partition would not work after a restart. It seemed that the second partition had corrupted as every time I tried to access it using an app, it asked me to select the partition type and then tried to reboot my device. I ended up having to wipe drive clean and that gave me a chance to install the latest ROM. Well, not necessary the latest ROM as it must have been a year since I last updated my HTC Desire Cyanogenmod ROM.

Everything is well and fine with my HTC Desire. I don’t really know if there’s any difference with the latest ROM, I just simply go with it. After updating, I removed some unused system apps by typing in some commands using the terminal emulator. The last app that I removed was the camera app that came with it. The original HTC Desire ROM camera app allows zoom of up to 5 times but this app that comes with Cyanogenmod only has 2 times zoom. I figure out it would be better to use other better quality camera app. The next thing I knew, the barcode scanner didn’t work as it utilises the camera app. I then had to search for it and put it back again. It’s quite a long process but I am glad that it is all working now.

It’s funny that I am already using iPhone 5 but I can’t still part with my HTC Desire. I still very much like to be a part of Android. There are things I like although not as much as I like the ease of the integration between iOS and OS X devices.

Recently, I start to notice that my iPhone 5’s battery life is getting worse. I wonder if that’s because I have been using 3G connection more often than WiFi. There’s an update to 6.1.2 which I have just done and the summary of the update was about battery draining by certain apps. The update was out there for quite sometime now but I just haven’t got around to do it until just now. Well, I will have to see if the battery life improves. Either way, I can’t do anything about it as the battery on iPhone is not removeable.

Despite of the poor battery life, I still can’t see myself replacing my iPhone 5 in the near future. This is the first time I actually feel that I don’t have to get another new phone. In the past, I changed my smartphone almost every year. On the other hand, I still keep a look out at the latest smartphones on offer. The latest Samsung Galaxy S4 doesn’t really excite me much except the 8-core processor. Does a smartphone really require 8-core processing power? My MacBook Air is almost two years now and it only has 2-core. Hence, the core is doubling on a yearly basis in the processor world. It will be interesting to see if one can really benefit from the full 8-core processor. Anyway, the S4 still looks roughly the same as S3. Oh, it has the eye-tracking technology. Say if you are watching a video, it will pause the video when you are not looking at the screen. It sounds cool but it just one of those features that’s nice to have but not necessary.

I thought the coming soon HTC One looks really cool. But then when I looked at the HTC Sense, it seems like it’s trying to mimic Windows Phone’s interface. I still don’t quite understand why Samsung is better loved by consumers compared to HTC which makes better quality smartphones. To be honest, I will still go for HTC smartphones if I were given the choice between Samsung and HTC. The best selling point for Android and Windows OS is the interactive home and lock screen which are the two things that I missed after the switch to iPhone 5. I also miss the notification light but I soon get used to it. Forget about the size of the phone, the next iOS needs to be good in order to be a contender in the smartphones’ world.

I have been playing Paradise Island HD on my iPad for quite sometime now. I actually first started playing the Android version of Paradise Island on my HTC Desire and I just found it sluggish and difficult to control. Eventually, I uninstalled it but I never really knew why I went on and downloaded it on my iPad. I guess I just want to finish the game. Well, it improves over time and it’s not quite possible to complete the game now that it has expanded to two islands and the quests are getting tougher and tougher to complete.

Worst still, the latest update doesn’t work at all. It hung while trying to install and a message asking whether it’s done or to retry prompts. Retry while just keeps failing. There’s a workaround which I haven’t tried yet. I will just leave it alone for the time being. I can’t be bothered really. I am not even sure if it can be fixed at all without the workaround.

Even though my iPhone 5 is my main phone now, I still use my HTC Desire pretty much everyday. Whatsapp is still active and I still use it to communicate with my friends and there are a few apps that are available on Android and not on iOS. In addition, I have some mobile survey apps installed on my HTC Desire which allow me to collect points and rewards. One of the apps actually require my HTC Desire to be an active mobile. Hence, I requested a free SIM card from Orange and installed on it. So far, I have not made any calls using the Orange number. In fact, I don’t even top up my account and it has been £0 since the day I installed it on my HTC Desire.

Oddly enough, I received a missed call from the number 08434102339. By doing a search in Google, I found out that it is a phone call regarding Payment Protection Insurance. I never use the number to make any phone calls and I never use it to register any websites. So yes, it is highly possible that Orange itself provides its customers’ details to various companies. Are all mobile network companies doing the same thing? Should they be allowed to do such thing? I always thought that I got those nuisance phone calls is because I registered my mobile numbers in various websites. My new Orange mobile number seems to suggest otherwise.

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